Part 38 (2/2)
”Why?”
”We're going to watch the traffic. I'm working on a theory.”
”What theory?”
”I can't tell you. I might be wrong, and then you wouldn't respect me anymore. And I like it better when a woman respects me in the morning.”
Thirty minutes later Vaughan b.u.mped down off the new blacktop and U-turned in the mouth of the old road and backed up on the shoulder. When the sun came up they would have a view a mile both ways. They would be far from inconspicuous, but also far from suspicious. Crown Vics were parked on strategic bends all over America, all day every day.
They cracked their windows to let some air in and reclined their seats and went to sleep. Two hours, Reacher figured, before there would be anything to see.
Reacher woke up when the first rays of the morning sun hit the left-hand corner of the winds.h.i.+eld. Vaughan stayed asleep. She was small enough to have turned in her seat. Her cheek was pressed against the mouse fur. Her knees were up and her hands were pressed together between them. She looked peaceful.
The first truck to pa.s.s them by was heading east toward Despair. It was a flat-bed semi with Nevada plates on both ends. It was loaded with a tangle of rusted-out junk. Was.h.i.+ng machines, tumble dryers, bicycle frames, bent rebar, road signposts all folded and looped out of shape by accidents. The truck thundered by with its exhaust cackling on the overrun as it coasted through the bend. Then it was gone, in a long tail of battered air and dancing dust.
Ten minutes later a second truck blew by, an identical flat-bed doing sixty, from Montana, heaped with wrecked cars. Its tires whined loud and Vaughan woke up and glanced ahead at it and asked, ”How's your theory doing?”
Reacher said, ”Nothing to support it yet. But also nothing to disprove it.”
”Good morning.”
”To you, too.”
”Sleep long?”
”Long enough.”
The next truck was also heading east, an ugly ten-wheel army vehicle with two guys in the cab and a green box on the back, a standardized NATO payload hauler built in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and about as pretty as an old pair of dungarees. It wasn't small, but it was smaller than the preceding semis. And it was slower. It barreled through the curve at about fifty miles an hour and left less of a turbulent wake.
”Resupply,” Reacher said. ”For the MP base. Beans, bullets, and bandages, probably from Carson.”
”Does that help?”
”It helps the MPs. The beans anyway. I don't suppose they're using many bullets or bandages.”
”I meant, does it help with your theory?”
”No.”
Next up was a semi coming west, out of Despair. The bed was loaded with steel bars. A dense, heavy load. The tractor unit's engine was roaring. The exhaust note was a deep bellow and black smoke was pouring from the stack.
Vaughan said, ”One of the four we saw last night.”
Reacher nodded. ”The other three will be right behind it. The business day has started.”
”By now they know we broke into that container.”
”They know somebody did.”
”What will they do about it?”
”Nothing.”
The second of the outgoing semis appeared on the horizon. Then the third. Before the fourth showed up another incoming truck blew by. A container truck. A blue China Lines container on it. Heavy, by the way the tires stressed and whined.
New Jersey plates.
Vaughan said, ”Combat wrecks.”
Reacher nodded and said nothing. The truck disappeared in the morning haze and the fourth outgoing load pa.s.sed it. Then the dust settled and the world went quiet again. Vaughan arched her back and stretched, perfectly straight from her heels to her shoulders.
”I feel good,” she said.
”You deserve to.”
”I needed you to know about David.”
”You don't have to explain,” Reacher said. He was turned in his seat, watching the western horizon a mile away. He could see a small shape, wobbling in the haze. A truck, far away. Small, because of the distance. Square, and rigid. A box truck, tan-colored.
He said, ”Pay attention now.”
The truck took a minute to cover the mile and then it roared past. Two axles, plain, boxy. Tan paint. No logo on it. No writing of any kind.
It had Canadian plates, from Ontario.
”Prediction,” Reacher said. ”We're going to see that truck heading out again within about ninety minutes.”
”Why wouldn't we? It'll unload and go home.”
”Unload what?”
”Whatever is in it.”
”Which would be what?”
”Sc.r.a.p metal.”
”From where?”
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